He Is Faithful

I said I wouldn’t post about our transition back to Canada. Sometimes writing makes me feel too vulnerable, too exposed. Now is one of the toughest times of my life, one of the times when I feel God’s blessing most deeply, and I don’t have the heart to put it all on display for the world to read.

But I know that there are people among you who are praying for my family during this time. Know that God is good, and He does good. Our travels have been smooth, and there have been moments of sheer beauty. We’ve traveled by car, truck and airplane (five airports, four countries, and three continents).

Through it all, I learn this one thing over and over and over again: God’s promises are precious. They are priceless.

As our last few days in Congo were running out, tripping on each others’ heels, a wise older man in Congo paused to tell me this; “This will leave wounds in our hearts. But God is the Healer.” My fluttering scared heart latched on to that promise and it keeps coming back to mind.

Even as I write, it re-opens all the raw, throbbing mess of my heart. There have been days when emotional and mental pain sweeps over me so hard that it feels like an iron fist is tightening around my body.

I remember watching our Uncle glue together two pieces of construction paper, waiting for it to dry, then ripping them apart. The result? Ragged scraps. That’s what’s happening  inside of me.

God is Healer. Always He comforts me, encourages me. I feel so unworthy, so messy, so ugly. Just this ripped up piece of paper, with half of me left somewhere else and bits of what-used-to-be clinging all over. And yet there is this incredible truth: this broken heart is beautiful when it’s on the altar.

So I lay it all down, thankful that there is something I can give back to Him who has given so much.

This also keeps me going: that He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Now I can boldly say, “The Lord is my Helper, whom shall I fear?”

Every heart-beat heard by this Healer, this Helper. Every hurt, every hunger held in the hand of this humble, Holy God!

Isn’t there awe in that?

And He is still the good Father who gives every good and perfect gift. This morning I was seated on my bed, trying to concentrate on my Bible. Looking up, I saw a vibrant rainbow arching perfectly outside my window! He keeps on reminding me gently that He is faithful to fulfill His promises.

Another reminder He gave me was when our plane landed in Toronto, Canada. Here’s the story:

The small television screen in front of me flickers nervously. I watch the altitude drop drastically. The little white plane on the moving map is nosing that white blob that supposedly represents Toronto. My heart is calm – I think. The seven hour flight gave me plenty of time to bring my fears to Jesus, and how wonderfully He wooed my heart back to Him! Now I grit my teeth, trying to bear the sharp pain in my ears. The plane slowly dips, flies low over grey buildings, then with a sharp jolt makes contact with the world again. An unexpected, overwhelming feeling of dismay momentarily takes my breath away. Fresh from the beautiful rainforest, having spent yesterday in (momentarily) sunny England, the sight out the window holds no appeal. Grey, gloomy skies drizzle dejectedly over grey, gloomy buildings and grey, gloomy tarmac. Dismal. I turn my eyes away. Just then, the man behind me comments, “It’s raining.”
His little daughter says that it is not. He says it is. She says it’s not. “Well,” he finally asks, “if it’s not raining, what is it doing?”

I hold my breath to hear her answer. “Dropping.” She says proudly. But in that one instant I am transported back in a flash to Congo. I am standing before the old lady across the street, holding the warm hand of a wee child. “Coco (Grandma)” I begin, “I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier. It was raining.”

She looks at me, the sunset rays gleaming in her dark eyes, shadows gathering around her like soft feathers. “It was not raining.” She says it so matter-of-factly that it startles me.

“But then, what was it doing?” I ask, confused.

She closes her eyes and leans back. “It was blessing.”

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I look outside again, and this time my heart is crying thanks to the One who ordained that our welcome into this new home would be complete with the misty drops of grace and blessing! And as I looked again, I saw that the grass was full of dandelions. Almost as if He knew we would miss the sun, and so He sprinkled splashes of sun liberally on the few strips of green.

That experience, that realizing that God knows my deepest desires and joys to fulfill them because He loves me, moved my heart in a deep way.

So God is faithful as we begin again in a new land…

The Wheel is Where I Am.

The last bicycle passes me and I take a big, deep breath.

Finally, I’m alone.

The path stretches ambitiously out from under my feet, skirting a soccer field and disappearing into high grass. But I linger, slow to pursue its welcoming curves, because for a precious few minutes, it’s all mine. I want to enjoy it. I raise my face to the sun, close my eyes and smile. The heat of this Sunday afternoon is pulsing around me like a live thing, and the sun’s rays are fierce. But I love it.

As I walk, the tangled thoughts from the last weeks slowly sort themselves out.

Everything is so deadly still today, so breathlessly suppressed under the scorching heat. My world, however, is one wild whirl.

People, things, ideas, concepts are being torn from my hands, my heart, my life, and I know that in a few weeks I will be drowning in a flood of new people, new things, new ideas, new concepts. My heart is being bruised now and soon it will be mercilessly forced into a new mold.

It’s happened before.

So I linger on this deserted strip of trodden dirt, trying to find words for the prayer that burns in my heart. That is when it comes to me: it is not the world I leave or the world I am entering that’s spinning crazy: it’s me. I am the moving factor.

The sky above is a watery blue, and the clouds look like they’ve been pasted on permanently. Not a breath of wind. I suddenly realize where I am:

my world’s a whirl because I’m waiting willing on the Potter’s wheel.

His wheel is spinning and that is where I am. He gives, and He takes, blessed be the name of God today, because I don’t care what spins out of my life or what spins in as long as I know the hand that keeps me, that molds me.

I know it like I know the solidness of the ground under my feet, like I know the reality of those palm trees stretching tall to whisper secrets to the still clouds.

I know this: That there is no place in heaven or on earth that I would rather be than on the Potter’s wheel.

This is where He will mold me.

And there is the magazine I picked up, this allusion to the miracle of tree growth: “Trees experience fire and times of no water…the growth rings show us the good times and the bad times.”

This has happened to me before.

I know that these next few months will leave their marks on me forever. This is one form of fire, one form of want, and yet it is all just a part of the growth.

I will wait on the wild whirling wheel because He is molding me, and when I have want of water, it is a time for maturing.

The marks could measure maturity.

And when everything’s spinning? If you don’t want to get motion sick, if you don’t want to fall down flat, you need to keep your eyes on what doesn’t move.

God is my goal.

He is the one thing that never changes, never moves, never leaves me or forsakes me……

….so what is there to fear?

(We have around two and a half weeks left here in Congo.)

DAY THREE

Day Three we talked about fathers. The attitudes and behaviour of fathers have deep cultural roots, and today some of the problems were revealed. After Uncle Rich’s talk about God’s design for fatherhood, we divided as usual into small groups: fathers, mothers, young men, young women, boys and girls.

In my group of young ladies, I started out by asking them if there were any challenges/problems in the area of relationships with fathers. There was a unanimous cry of “yes! So many!” The girl next to me said, “I don’t know how to say this in Lingala, really….but what we’re really missing from our fathers is love. Like, knowing that he delights in us and is interested in us. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t have a lot of money, we just need to know that he loves us.” I asked if any of the girls felt loved in that way by their fathers. None. Except me, of course. (I am incredibly blessed to have my father, by the way.) One girl went on this lengthy praise of the uncle she was staying at because he provided for them well and they never slept hungry. “Do you ever feel like your fathers don’t let you sleep hungry in body but you do sleep hungry in your hearts?” I asked. Girls were nodding. I felt like crying. These girls feel like all the guys are out to use them, their fathers don’t show them love, and they don’t have a real living relationship with Jesus. How do they live? We had an opportunity to ask some questions for pastors to answer the next morning and the first question they wanted to ask was, What can we do to make our fathers love us?

The young children (below twelve) were never really a part of our plan for this conference. But I am so, so thankful that they are there. Every day they sit still, listening closely. They are seated up front, and they notice everything. Then when they are given an opportunity in their group to ask questions, they ask. This morning, a very wise Congolese pastor was answering some of the questions and giving a summary of the last day. The children had asked, “If our parents leave us hungry, refuse to clothe us and pay for our school fees, if they neglect us, is it a sin not to obey them?” There was a loud murmur of surprise at the pointed question among the adult sections of the church, and the Pastor in the front turned to them. “What do we need to do?” he asked. The answer: we need to ask forgiveness. So he turned to the group of children sitting at the front and said, “Children, all of us parents here ask your forgiveness.” That was my favourite part of the morning session!!! It is so rare to see an adult apologizing to a child here!! And then he turned and asked the adults again, “Once we’ve asked forgiveness, what must we do?” The answer: we must change. Yes! We must change. That is what is being said again and again this week.

Again, the little boys asked, “Why in the pictures is Pastor Richard holding his baby when none of the men here hold babies? They always give them to a woman or an older child.” That again has deep cultural roots, and the pastors are uncertain how to answer. Two boys under ten years old made commitments today that when they grow up and marry, they would take the responsibility of raising their children to follow God.

There is so much hope with the children. With the women groups, there is a lot more discussion of issues that have risen after years of bad decisions. There are polygamous marriages, split families, and widows.

The men, who are primarily addressed in each session, are the ones who have showed the most openness to change and to challenge their ‘Goliaths’ in their families and societies. I don’t know much more than that, because I was not in their small groups and I did not talk with their leaders.

So God is doing a great work, and we are amazed! Now Uncle Rich moves on to the topics of marriage and healthy sex, also hot spots in this culture. Pray, pray, pray!

Give us Grace, Not “Normal”

Her eyes lock mine. Her wrinkled face is contorted, and her statement comes out as a question; “God will help us…?” I glance down at her daughter suffering on the hospital bed, recovering from an operation, and then back at the face so close to mine. The eyes begging an answer. I say the one word, the yes. Anna she sings, and I play my flute. We try to bring the melody of grace to this one girl in a bustling hospital full of hurting people. It is His faithfulness and mercy to the girl who wears fresh wounds deep in her stomach. She will scar and there will be no more smoothness, just a memory of the suffering. The floor is cracked, the walls are dirty, people are shuffling past and a baby is wailing but we pray that now, like never before, she will know His presence. Because sometimes pain drives us into His presence, into His peace.

—-

Half an hour later, we are sitting at another young lady’s home, enjoying the cool shade under the thatched roof of their sitting-place. Little girls play with piles of pebbles, and a chicken wanders through puddles of sunshine dancing on the dirt floor.

As the talk continues, we get into deeper subjects. I hear the story of the little girl sitting on my friends lap. How she was brought when a tiny baby, dropped off by her mother who left and hasn’t come back. How she had an operation and my friend stayed with her at the hospital for all those days. How she drank juice and sugary tea and water, and now was just beginning to eat. How she saw my friend as her mother. The story keeps coming, but it’s so similar to the ones I’ve already heard so many times from girls my age. So many have little girls or little boys who they “mother” in whatever way they think best. The little ones are almost entirely spoiled with instant gratification of their every wish. I think of the article I read this week about how the lack of a father affects children and I swish my water in the tin cup and pray in my heart for the children of Congo.

I ask if it doesn’t break the mother’s heart to come back and find her baby attached to someone else? Doesn’t it hurt a mother to be constantly working and return in the evening to find her children distanced from her, to find that she cannot talk to her daughters anymore?

Oh, but it’s normal, they tell me. Parents mostly want to get their children to university and get them married/settled down somewhere, they tell me. Parents know that university will ruin their children, and many don’t check out the integrity of their child’s spouse as long as there is enough money in the marriage to make them feel important.

They say it like this hard fact. So many parents figure their kids are ruined anyways by that age that they don’t even try to salvage them. Maybe the parents themselves don’t have anything else to offer their kids, I think. 

After all, it is normal.

“How can you ask if someone regrets that they only eat with their mouth, and not with their eyes or nose?” they ask me, “They don’t even know that another way exists.”

I close my eyes to stop the pounding in my head. I see the face of that girl in the hospital. So that’s where she’ll end up? I open my eyes and see the happy little girl still playing with her pebbles and it makes me sick to think of her future. I see the toddler cuddled in my friend’s lap and think of where her mother is….where her father is….I think of how girls from nine and up are put in charge of rearing babies and toddlers – they do not know how to raise them. Oh, the children of Congo!

In the evening friends come to see me, and they speak of all the same issues. One says that when she’s a mother, if she doesn’t want all her children, she’ll just ‘give some away’. Speaks of how she’s trained her younger siblings to love and obey her instead of their mother.

Pray for this new generation, that there would be a new mentality, that they would have new hearts….

Grace has begun, we see healing in families. There are always exceptions to normal. But there is still so far to go….

Pray for the parents of Congo.